Joseph Nicephore Niepce

Joseph Nicephore Niepce (7 March 1765-5 July 1833) was a French gentleman scientist and factory master who invented photography. His picture "View from the Window at Le Gras", taken in 1827, is the earliest surviving photograph.

Biography
Niepce was born in Chalons-sur-Saone in eastern France in 1765. During the French Revolutionary Wars he served in Italy and Sardinia but retired due to ill health, and Niepce and his brothers began scientific research at their chateau in 1801. The brothers raised beets and sold sugar and gentleman farmers, and researched about technologies at the college at Orleans during the Napoleonic Wars. Niepce took his first photograph in 1816 via paper doused with silver chloride, but the picture was dark where it should be light. He decided to use chemicals to create a form of heliography (sun-drawing), and in 1827 he took a photograph of the landscape outside of Le Gras, taken from his window. He later discovered invisible Uranium salt radiation.